One Stone
by scratchedlines
Summary: One-shot of Mordecai's first meeting with Bloodwing.


Artemis was long gone, no longer occupying the hunter's thoughts as he sought his glory elsewhere. He sought planet after planet, trying to find something that would replace his loss, to find "what the universe owed him", as he so aptly put it. But one location after the next offered very little in the way of a challenge. Either too easy and or the men too ill-prepared, nothing seemed to satiate his need to overcome the tasks placed before him. Until he heard of Agrius: a grueling, ten-day venture, where the participants were forced to live in the wild and get from point A to point B, a roughly 70-mile distance to cover. That seemed like a peace of cake until curiousity got the better of him.

Throughout the Echonet were images sprinkled of Agrius' terrain. Harsh, steep cliffs, rocky, barren wastelands, choking swamps that claimed even the wildlife on a whim, and sinking sands that were home to things the people didn't even have a name for. Mainly because no one had ever lived long enough to describe what they looked like.

What could be more perfect? Granted it wasn't a shooting competition, but with his meager need to eat, his rations could last much longer than the average man. It was obviously a test of endurance that he could likely come away from unscathed. Not to mention the $200,000 pot looked pretty sweet, too.

It was day four of his journey through said swamps, taking care to maintain his footing along the high branches of the grey, twisted trees. The green muck below didn't look at all inviting, and stunk of something that had long since died and soaked the air with its stench. So good so far… until a screech overhead paused his reach for the next limb. A silhouette of something small and feathery peered down at him with piercing red eyes, backlit by the noon day sun. Just a bird, he told himself, shaking his head at his apprehension as he crossed that gap to the other side. But one screech turned into two, then three… dozens. What he had believed to be a shady canopy of leaves was nothing more than more of those birds.

And he was invading their home.

One by one, they alighted from their perches, making the most horrible din as they started to divebomb his head. They were trying their best to get rid of the offending creature by any means possible, using their beaks and talons to send him in another direction. But Mordecai wasn't so happy to oblige them; for one thing, this was the safest path in the direction to the other side, and going around was going to add two more days to his journey. It was through here or nothing at all.

The birds, of course, had no problem with the latter option.

As he swatted at them, thankful for the goggles that kept his eyes safe, one such creature dove right into the middle of his chest, knocking him off-balance to the sick green ooze below. But it was not to be so lucky, as the hunter snatched it out of the air in an effort to grab onto something and stop his fall. One Truxican swear followed the muffled yell of the bird as they both plunged to their doom.

It was less of a splash and more of a wet, hard squelch when Mordecai hit the surface, aloft for a micro-second before he started to sink. The bird itself was already soaked with ooze, its wings flapping about in an attempt to get free of the muck and take to the air again. With its feathers coated, however, it would have no such chance of rejoining its flock mates. The hunter rolled himself onto a nearby dead log, shaking the pond scum and thick tendrils of weeds from off his arms. He should have left it behind to die, as revenge for what it had done. Yet, he couldn't bear to leave it; its sickening cries as it struggled to stay afloat were more than enough to make him cringe, an obvious runt of the litter from its size. Undone from his back, he held out the leather scabbard of his blade for the bird to climb upon and settled it on the log beside him. The tiny thing looks absolutely miffed and exhausted, but made no move to get away, it's tiny chest fluttering so fast, it was barely perceptible.

"Maybe ya won't think about fuckin' with me next time, _mierda de pollo_." The words were spat out as he undid his vest to start wiping the gunk of the small bird, chuckling at its tenacity.


End file.
